It is a common step in the process of designing digital interfaces, such as web design and website building, that the product will be tested during development and before launch. This step involves ensuring that the proposed website or interface has no problems and functions as it should and that it can be used easily by customers.
Usability testing is often conducted by a third party who is not linked to the owner/developer of the interface. Information is provided by the interface owner/developer and the third party develops testing methods that will assess the usability of the interface. These testing methods include materials such as questionnaires and task scenarios. The testing materials are provided to a small group of ‘participants’ who conduct the tests according to the parameters set out in the test materials. After the tests are run, results are collated and reports are generated by the third party and presented in a way the owner/developer can understand so that the owner/developer can determine what changes should be made to the interface to improve its usability. Typically testing is conducted “face-to-face”, i.e. the third party physically observes how the participants interact with the interface being tested. However, this method is time consuming and cost prohibitive to the majority of interface owners/developers. Another drawback is that it produces qualitative results with a high standard error that cannot always be relied upon as being perfectly accurate.
Other known methods of usability testing are not conducted face-to-face, but are conducted over a communications network, such as the Internet. Participants test the digital interfaces via their computing devices, for example from their own homes or offices. However, such methods typically require a block of Java code to be added to every page comprising the website being tested, which can be both time consuming and costly to add, particularly where websites have many constituent web pages.
Another drawback is that such methods require participants to download an application or the like to their computing device to enable the participants' interaction with the interface to be monitored by the third party. Many participants are wary of downloading such applications fearing that a virus and/or malware and/or adware may also be downloaded and infect or otherwise corrupt their computing device and/or compromise their confidential personal information. Hence, many are reluctant to participate in usability testing.
Google Analytics is one example of an online usability testing tool that requires the insertion of code on the website to be tracked and/or requires participants to download a small program to their computer for the interactions to be tracked. This is necessary so the tracked website can ‘talk’ to the data collection website. To insert code on the website to be tracked necessitates having access to the source code of the website. Hence, testing is limited to one's own website or one to which back-end access is provided, such as a client's website. This solution typically also has lower response rates of usability evaluations because of the aforementioned concern regarding viruses, malware and/or adware.
Some usability testing tools use path analysis and log files, such as embodiments of the methods and apparatus disclosed in International patent applications WO 01/57706 and WO 02/08903 in the name of Vividence Corporation. Whilst such methods and apparatus provide a useful usability testing solution, the use of server log files does not always yield meaningful usability data. Log files can only report requests to the server. Therefore, if a user's network or ISP has, for example, cached a copy of the relevant webpage, a subsequent request for that webpage will not have a corresponding log entry. Therefore usability data derived from the log file will be inaccurate because it will not be based on an accurate account of the user's requests. There are also limitations on the extent of usability information that log fields can provide. For example, generally log files do not indicate what a user is looking for, whether it was easy to find and whether it satisfied the user's objective.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,526,526 discloses a method, system and program for remote automated usability testing of a software application utilizing a data processing system connected within a network. A test wizard comprising scripting, measurement gathering and data transmission for the usability testing is activated while the software application is running. In some embodiments all data for controlling scripting is initially included with the text wizard. However, in other embodiments, additional data for scripting is provided via the network, which is likely to attract the aforementioned concern regarding viruses, malware and/or adware.
United States Patent Publication No. 2007/0209010 also discloses computer implemented systems and methods for testing the usability of software applications in which a web based test interface executes independently of the software application under test. The testing system has no programmatic interaction with the software application under test and information entered by the participant within the test interface is recorded by the testing program. US 2007/0209010 states that monitoring software does not need to be installed on the participant's computer, which may address the aforementioned concern regarding the risk of downloading viruses, malware and/or adware. US 2007/0209010 states that the disclosed systems and methods may be used to perform large-scale testing and to improve the reliability of measures beyond those possible in a typical quality lab environment.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to overcome or at least ameliorate one or more of the disadvantages of the prior art.